


Tuna Salad and Sloppy Joes

by bluestring14



Series: With a Taste of Your Lips [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz, Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz (Two River Cast) RPF, Be More Chill - Ned Vizinni
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Boyfriends, High School, M/M, Soulmate AU, Tumblr Prompts, a bit of angst, probably slow burn, soulmate prompt, starts with friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 05:30:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17054066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestring14/pseuds/bluestring14
Summary: "Halfsies"





	Tuna Salad and Sloppy Joes

**Author's Note:**

> It’s my first time writing for this fandom so I hope you guys give me some slack 😊 This is from a prompt I found on Tumblr.

It’s the first day of freshman year and just like every year since middle school, Jeremy had already ticked off all of the awkward things he can possibly do – stumble through hallways, rush to the classrooms in between classes, slam on locker doors, and embarrass himself in front of cute girls and even worse, tall, burly jocks who can knock him into oblivion. That’s if he was even worth the effort.

To no one’s surprise, he was not.

The first four periods were a breeze. Maybe it’s because they had done nothing but talk about the class rules. When fifth period came, however, the drone of the teacher talking about who-knows-what wasn’t enough to distract him from his grumbling stomach anymore. He felt like he was going to perish soon if he couldn’t get his fill of, at this point, anything.

His dad forgot to pack him lunch again so he had nothing to sneak into his mouth whenever the teacher would turn around and his classmates did their own things while she wasn’t paying attention. But then again, Jeremy wasn’t so surprised his dad forgot, he knew he wasn’t worth the effort anyway.

“Hey, Jer, you good? You sound like the zombie horde from Apocalypse of the Damned.”

His best friend, Michael, waved his hand in front of his face, making the bracelets hanging around his wrists, jingle.

Jeremy hadn’t realized that he was making such a racket and more importantly, he hadn’t realized that the two of them were the only ones left in the classroom.

 _Great,_ he thought. _First day and I’m already calling for unwanted attention. What if the others heard it? What if the teacher thought that-_

“Dude, I can practically hear what you’re thinking and I’m probably the one who could hear it given that I sit right beside you.” Michael said, showing off the chair right beside Jeremy, making Michael look like that meme of Will Smith showing off his wife.

“Good.” Jeremy murmured as he stood up, slinging the bag on his shoulder, and following Michael was who was beckoning that they get out of the classroom.

Jeremy followed as Michael led them both towards the cafeteria. At that point, Jeremy was grateful that Michael didn’t do two things: one, ask whether he had lunch or not ‘cause Michael seemed to know that he didn’t have any and two, request that he be the way finder on their quest to look for the cafeteria.

On the way there, luckily, Jeremy didn’t have to worry about looking like a nervous wreck ‘cause he was too focused on listening to Michael who was definitely used to all his quirks. Plus, it helped that most of the kids were already at the cafeteria or outside for lunch.

_Oof._

Jeremy was stopped by Michael’s outstretched arm.

“Woah.”

Right in front of them was the cafeteria and it was packed with what looked to be the whole school albeit grouped in their own little cliques. Funnily enough, it reminded Jeremy of cafeterias in the movies which he watched; all the cheerleaders were wearing their skits and flirting with the jocks who had an arm around a cheerleader and a football in the other, members of a band were wiping down their respective instruments, and well, everyone else stood out from the other thanks to their distinguishing pieces of clothing.

“I’ll go look for seats,” Michael said and patted Jeremy’s back.

Jeremy watched as Michael weaved through people to look for an empty table or with the state of the cafeteria right now, two empty chairs.

It took about 10 seconds before realized that he should’ve gotten hold of the hood of Michael’s red hoodie – even though he knew that Michael would hide his stash of weed from Jeremy for months in contempt – to tell him something.

_Like, be careful of the jocks and steer clear of the hot girls, and the seniors and the theater kids, basically everyone who could dunk them in the school’s trash bins._

But Jeremy knew it was too late.

His stomach grumbled even louder than before. Michael was right, it did sound like the horde of zombies from Apocalypse of the Damned.

 _No. More of the zombie from the boss level._ Jeremy thought. _Guess it’s time to eat._

When he approached the long line of kids who were buying their lunch too, he saw trays upon trays of cafeteria food laid out in front of him.

 _Nothing out of the usual_ , Jeremy thought as he slid his tray down the metal rails that were located right in front of the variety of dishes served to them.

It was a good thing that he already knew what he wanted to get instead of stressing out which one he _should_ get – whether that was for being healthier or being less of a loser.

In fact, he was proud of the fact that he knew ‘cause if there’s one thing he was prepared for it for it was knowing that the school’s cafeteria would serve some questionable pile of mush, watered down vegetables, packed burritos from the gasoline station a few blocks down, and a holy grail that every just had to get because that’s the only palatable thing from all of the choices.

Today’s holy grail was a sloppy joe.

“Sloppy joe,” Jeremy told the lunch lady.

“What?” She retorted, obviously pissed for something which Jeremy didn’t know what.

He raised his slightly shaking finger and pointed at the mess that was chili in a bun.

The lunch lady finally understood this time and hurriedly as well as impatiently placed the plate on top of Jeremy’s tray.

Jeremy swallowed and went on his merry way – merrier than he was compared to when he was in front of the lunch lady – to the place where Michael was.

The thing is, there was a sea, no, ocean (‘cause Michael told him once that oceans were much bigger than seas) of people that everyone just blended in with everyone else, Michael included.

Jeremy braved a step and dodged rushing jocks, pretty girls, basically everyone he wanted to warn Michael about a while ago.

 _Those video games did some good after all_. Jeremy though, surprised that he didn’t hit or bump into anyone in the process just like in one of their video games where-

“Jer! Over here!” Michael said out loud enough for him to hear.

Jeremy scanned the crowd and saw Michael half-waving his hand. His headphones were down which was a first.

He scurried to the table Michael was sitting at. It wasn’t so bad. It was far enough from all the popular kids or eccentric kids who got attention who got attention without much effort.

Even if they had to sit on one end of the table with the other kids crammed on the other end whispering and glaring at them, the place Michael chose wasn’t really so bad.

Just when Jeremy was about to sit, some dude behind him bumped into him. He watched as his sloppy joe turn into a sloppier joe – with the top bun now located on the end of the plate and the plate now located at the edge of the tray.

Jeremy really thought that today was the day he could start his record of not bumping into anyone.

It took about a minute for Jeremy to calm himself down before Michael instinctively moved, allowing Jeremy to sit on the bench right beside him.

Once Jeremy took a seat, he sighed unintentionally and started at the mess that was now his lunch.

“Halfsies.” Michael randomly said out loud, grabbing the tray and pulling it toward him.

Jeremy knew that anyone who wasn’t him would probably be pissed with Michael right now. But not Jeremy, he was helplessly dumbfounded and even a little bit curious.

Jeremy watched as Michael pushed back the sleeves of his hoodie, put back the top bun on the sandwich, gripped the two buns firmly, and split the messy sandwich into two messy halves.

Albeit still a bit confused, Jeremy stayed silent as Michael grabbed one half and pushed the plate back to Jeremy, motioning him to eat it.

Jeremy awkwardly tried to look for a way to hold it and take a bite of his lunch but before he found a comfortable and less messy way, there was a massive wave of flavor that spread across his tongue which tasted a lot like the sloppy joe.

Thing is, he hadn’t taken a bite yet.

Jeremy turned his head toward Michael and saw that Michael had practically devoured his in three huge bites.

 _That’s impossible_. Jeremy thought. _I couldn’t have. It couldn’t have_.

“I’ve tasted better.” Michael said, dusting off the crumbs from his fingers.

“It’s not so bad.”

“Oh, come on, how would you know? You haven’t even tasted yours.” Michael said, pointing to Jeremy’s half which had filling that was dripping onto the plate.

After taking a bite, Jeremy couldn’t help but notice Michael from the corner of his eye who was taking out his lunch – tuna fish salad in between slightly tasted white bread – and did the same thing he did with the sloppy joe but this time, some of the filling found its way onto Michael’s fingers.

“Halfsies” was all Michael said as he pushed the half sandwich, that lay on top of a paper bag, toward Jeremy.

Jeremy never expected Michael to share but he was nonetheless grateful.

Michael’s mom’s tuna sandwich became more of his comfort food when he stayed over at Michael’s when his parents fought.

It was a good thing that Jeremy was finished with his sloppy joe ‘cause there wasn’t anything in the world or at least in the cafeteria, that beat the flavor of this sandwich and he was so ready to enjoy his half.

“Cheers.” Michael said, raising his half and taking a bite soon after Jeremy raised his in cheers.

Jeremy didn’t have to take a bite out of his half to taste the slightly salty, sour, and mayo filled goodness of the tuna salad that brought back memories of him and Michael in the basement, playing video games or high out of their minds.

And as much as he wondered why he could taste the food in front of him without taking a bite, he didn’t mind so much. Worrying about it wasn’t really worth the effort.

“Jer, you good?” Michael asked, tilting his head.

“Yeah.” Jeremy took a bite and looked at Michael and all the high schools around him. “Not so bad.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment on my writing style 'cause it's been a while since I've written fanfiction, I'm a bit rusty. Also, look out for the next few installments. P.S. If you want any other flavors, feel free to comment and I'll see if I can do anything with it :)


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